survival analysis in names research

Ilia Baranov. Survival analysis in names research www.brnd.name ICOS XXVI. August, 2017

Who wants to live forever: Survival analysis in names research

Ilia Baranov www.brnd.name

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Ilia Baranov (2017) Who wants to live forever: Survival analysis in names research. XXVI International Congress of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS). Debrecen, August, 27 — September, 1.


Commercial names research

Brand functions

Brand metrics

Business results

Linguistic properties

How are properties of the name directly related to business success? What brand functions do certain properties perform?

Presenter

Presentation Notes

A lot of commercial names studies connect linguistic properties of name with brand metrics. These metrics indicate the consumers’ perception of the brand. These are brand attitude, brand recall, purchase intention and so on. How do brand metrics relate to real business results? Most often we do not know. Here we try to find some of these relations.


Brand functions of name

1. Identification 2. Search cost reduction 3. Quality signaling 4. Risk reduction 5. Relationship 6. Habitual 7. Symbolic (Round and Roper, 2012)

Presenter

Presentation Notes

As an integral part of the brand, the name can perform all the brand functions. The first is Identification: the name helps the consumer to recognize a familiar brand. Next is Search cost reduction: an unfamiliar brand name tells the customer something important. Quality signaling. Familiar things seem to be of good quality. And a good sounding name could increase brand evaluation. Risk reduction. Familiar brands seem safer. Relationship. Customers perceive brands as humans. Brands can have gender, age and personality. Habitual function concerns the convenience of the name in everyday usage. For example, its pronunciation fluency or easy recognition by search engines. Finally, brands can express symbolic values of certain social or national groups.


Semantics Grammar Graphics Phonetics Identification

Search cost reduction Quality signaling Risk reduction

Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic

Connecting linguistics & branding

Presenter

Presentation Notes

In this matrix, we try to schematize the existing knowledge about how linguistic properties of the name affect brand performance.




Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic

The higher the imagery,

the better the recall


Presenter

Presentation Notes

It’s the identification function of semantics.




Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic


Congruent grammatical gender of the name and the

product class increases brand

evaluation.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

It’s quality signaling through grammar.




Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic


Fine dining: low fluency leads to

enhanced desirability

High fluency

inspire confidence.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

The same linguistic property could influence two different brand functions in a contrary manner. High fluency is useful for the habitual function, while low fluency seems to be a quality signal.




Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic


Long movie names have more box office

than short ones.

Foodservice chains with short names

have better financial performance than with long names.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Similarly, long names may contain more information, but short names are more convenient.


Measures of business results

Marketing: Market share, sales volume Financial: Brand margin, firm value, stock price Integral: Lifetime before renaming or closure Lifetime before change of owner Owner on the cover of Fortune

Presenter

Presentation Notes

We suggest to use the most integral indicator of business performance – namely, the market lifespan of business units.


Commercial names research

Brand functions

Business results (lifetime)

Linguistic properties

Survival analysis Brand metrics

Presenter

Presentation Notes

To connect name properties with business lifespan, we used the statistical method of survival analysis. This method was developed and is widely used in medicine.


Survival Analysis

1999 2013

Censored

Uncensored

Time

Cases

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Some objects could arise and close outside of the observation range. And we don’t know their lifetime exactly. Therefore, we cannot compare them by the usual statistical methods. Survival analysis allows us to take these observations into account. Each object is characterized by only two variables: its lifetime in the period observed and the completeness of observation.


Survivor bias

Consider not only Top100 brands, but a representative sample.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

We know many stories of people rescued by dolphins who pushed them to the shore. But the people who were pushed in the opposite direction will tell us nothing. To avoid this bias, it is important to consider both successful and unsuccessful cases.


The sample Moscow, 1999–2013

Cafes N 820

Restaurants N 1,143

p<.001

Time, years

Cumulative proportion surviving

Presenter

Presentation Notes

That’s why we use such a big sample. The results of the analysis are presented as graphs of probability of survival until certain time. The higher the ladder, the better names with this property survive. Restaurants are bigger than cafes and survive better.


Named vs. no-name cafes

Noname < Named

Named N 820

No-name N 127 p<.001

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Here we can see the importance of the name itself. Named cafes survive much better than no-name cafes.


Named vs. no-name cafes

Noname < Named

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Instead of graphics every time, we will use some notations.


Notation

Х < Y — names with X property have a significantly shorter lifetime than names with Y property (p < .05). X = Y — names with properties X and Y have statistically equal lifetimes (p > .10). X ≤ Y — names with X property have a shorter lifetime, but not statistically significant (.05 < p < .15). O — absence of property

Presenter

Presentation Notes

‘Х less than Y’ means that names with X property have a significantly shorter lifetime than names with Y property. ‘X equals Y’ means there is no difference.


Brand name semantics Semantics Grammar Graphics Phonetics

Identification


Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Let's start with semantics.


Meaning

O = Meaning Low imagery < High imagery (restaurants, not cafes) Small < Big Colour = O Light = Dark

Presenter

Presentation Notes

The absence of lexical meaning does not affect survival. It's unusual. Previously, for banks and clothing stores, we found that names with clear meaning survive better than names with unclear meaning. However, high-imagery names survive better than low-imagery ones. Delving deeper into imagery, we found that names referring to big objects survive better than names referring to small objects. And the color or the light reference was not found to affect survival. We suppose that imagery contributes to the identification function. And size could be part of quality signaling or risk reduction.


Category connection

Connected: food, tableware, taste, relevant human properties, type of enterprise, not nationality

Meaning = No meaning

Connected < O

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Names connected to food and food service survive worse than unrelated names. These food-related names are even less survivable than names without meaning. We suppose that a mere connection to the category does not provide enough information for the consumer. And a service with a food-related name looks like a no-name facility. So it’s the brand identification function.


Animacy vs. geography Human = Animal Domestic = Wild

O < Animate

Animate ≤ Country Cardinal < City ≤ Country points

O ≤ Geography

Thing = Idea = No meaning < Place = Animate

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Animate names survive better than inanimate ones. It’s the brand relationship function. If we split inanimate names, the picture changes. Now place names and animate names are equally survivable, and both of them survive better than things, ideas and names with unclear meaning. Further division shows that names pointing to a country survive as well as animate names. Geography is associated with national cuisine. And we suppose it’s the search cost reduction function.


Gender

‘Restaurant’: masculine (M) ‘Cafe’: neuter; ‘food’ : feminine (F) Entire sample: M < F No meaning: M < F Animated/O: M ≤ F Equal in length M < F

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Gender in Russian is both a semantic and a grammatical category. It is known that congruency in gender for the name and the service descriptor or front person could raise brand evaluation. We found a better survival rate for the feminine gender. It’s not congruent for both descriptors – ‘café’ and ‘restaurant’. Who this woman is, we don’t know yet. Waitress, mother or someone else. Is it the brand relationship function again, or maybe risk reduction.


Soviet names Мечта Главпивтрест Ангара Березка

Entire sample: Soviet names = O

Restaurants: O < Soviet names

Cafes: Soviet names < O

Dream

Beer

River

Birch

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Here are examples of food service names with typical Soviet connotations. There is no effect on survival for the entire sample. If we split the sample, we find that soviet names are better for restaurants than cafes. We think that patrons of cafes are young and have no nostalgia about Soviet era. It’s the symbolic function of the brand. ---------------- Березка is a diminutive name for birch, the national Russian tree. Мечтa means Dream. It is a café name that could be found in almost every town of Soviet Russia. Ангара is a big Siberian river with a pool of huge hydro power stations. Главпивтрест is an abbreviation formed by the first syllables of ‘beer industry department’. It’s a fictional name but the model is absolutely Soviet.


Brand name grammar Semantics Grammar Graphics Phonetics

Identification

Search cost reduction

? Quality signaling Risk reduction

Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Grammar


Name structure

Пойдем в Онегин — Let’s go to Onegin Пойдем в У Онегина — Let’s go to At Onegin’s

Noun < Prep+Noun

Онегин У Онегина

Presenter

Presentation Notes

In Russian, food service names with prepositions are less convenient to use in speech than names without prepositions. But prepositional names survive better than single nouns. So it’s not the habitual function. But what? In average, names with prepositions are longer than names without them. So we need to control for name length.


Name structure

1-word < 2-word = 3-word 2-word: Noun+Noun < Adj+Noun < Prep+Noun

11,3 14,0 10,3 Length

Place < At+place; Person < At+person’s Article+Noun < Noun+Noun < Prep+Noun

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Names with several words survive better than single-word names. But it could be the length effect, too. If we compare 2-word combinations we can see that length does not matter for prepositional combinations. Maybe it’s semantics? Almost all names with prepositions refer to a place or a personal name. If we compare names only within these categories, preference of preposition combinations is still preserved. It is a rare name structure, but another rare combination, a foreign noun with an article, has no survival advantage. We suppose that prepositional names send some kind of quality or risk reduction signal.


Brand name graphics/visuals Semantics Grammar Graphics Phonetics

Identification


Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Graphics


5 7

15 17

Length

.

Mid 8–13 Short 2–7

Long 14+

p<.001

Presenter

Presentation Notes

The longer the name, the better it survives. The effect persists even if we control for the number of words, syllables, semantics and grammar of the name. It means that length could be important by itself and tangibility of long names contributes to risk reduction. It is more important than the habitual convenience of short names.


Letter recognition fluency

1. Perimetric complexity: Simple < Complex = Medium

2. Legibility: high < low (nouns, length=6…10) The worse, the better?

P2/S

Easy: Р, X, O Hard: К, H

Presenter

Presentation Notes

It was established that more fluent names have higher brand attitude. Fluency means easiness of pronunciation, or reading, or understanding. In the case of reading, we measured letter recognition fluency in two ways. In both cases we found the preference for less fluent names. We suppose that small difficulties in reading attract more consumer attention and signal about quality.


Letters and N-grams frequencies

Name no effect Sample letters and 2-grams: freq = rare 3-grams: freq < rare 4-grams: freq < mid < rare Speech letters and 2-grams: rare=freq 3-grams: freq ≤ rare ≤ mid words: freq < mid < rare Frequent < Rare

Presenter

Presentation Notes

It is known that some kinds of repetitions in the name increase memorability, recognition, familiarity and therefore raise brand evaluation. We studied repetitions of letters and their combinations within the name.., Frequencies within the sample, and speech frequencies. We found that rare letter combinations survive better than frequent ones. It’s not familiarity, and therefore it’s not Risk reduction. It’s not recall and recognition, so it’s not the Identification or Habitual function. We suppose that the slight peculiarity could serve as a quality signal again.


QWERTY effect

Left-handed < Right handed (length = 5…11 or 4 beginning letters in name)

1999 — 2013

Presenter

Presentation Notes

In the beginning of the period observed, people used paper guides to search for restaurants, then they used desktop keyboards and now smartphones. Some of them still use two hands for typing. For several consumer goods in e-commerce, preference of names with a high share of right-hand-typed letters was found for several languages with Latin graphics. In our study we also found better survival for right-handed names in Cyrillic. It’s the habitual graphics effect.


Brand name phonetics Semantics Grammar Graphics Phonetics

Identification


Relationship

Habitual

Symbolic

Presenter

Presentation Notes

And phonetics of brand names.


Consonants

Voiceless < O = Voiced Soft = O = Hard

‘Badness’ Voiceless Voiced Soft (palatalized) 70 42 Hard 68 41

(Zhuravlev, 1974)

Presenter

Presentation Notes

On average, Russian people rate voiced consonants better than voiceless. Soft and hard consonants are rated equally. We found that names with a high share of voice consonants survive better than the rest. Palatalization does not affect survival. It seems to be a phonetic quality signal.


V-fluency

Easy: в Анапу, в Грот, во Вкус Middle: в Баку, в Хмель Hard: в Вертикаль, в Феникс Hard < Middle = Easy

Presenter

Presentation Notes

In everyday Russian speech, food service names are often used with the preposition V. For this reason, names starting with a vowel are the easiest to pronounce: в Анапу. The most difficult are the names beginning with B or Ф, followed by a vowel: в Вертикаль, в Феникс. And it turned out that inconvenient names survive worse than convenient and neutral ones. So in this case, pronunciation fluency reflects the habitual function of the brand.


Summary Semantics Grammar Graphics Phonetics

Identification High imagery, not food

Search cost reduction

Country

Preposition + noun

Rare 3-grams, less legible

Quality signaling

Voice consonants

Risk reduction

Big Long

Relationship Animate, Female Habitual Right-handed V- fluent Symbolic Soviet

Presenter

Presentation Notes

We found survival effects for different linguistic properties and tried to assign them to appropriate brand functions. More successful names are more tangible: They are of high imagery, they are long and refer to big size semantically. They contain a high share of voiced consonants. Next, more successful names are less fluent: They contain infrequent letter combinations or words, Have some small difficulties in reading and pronunciation. We suggest that such difficulties help service names to catch the attention of the recipient. And we can see attractive gaps for further research.


Conclusions

Name lifespan is sensitive to various linguistic levels of the name. In service names, survival analysis could shed light on the relationship of their linguistic properties and brand functions.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

So we hope that survival analysis could help us to understand how commercial names work.


Ideal Russian restaurant name

Long, high imagery Soviet-sounding female name with voiced consonants, Prep + noun…

У Валентины (At Valentina’s)

Thank you!

Presenter

Presentation Notes

And let us invent the best Russian restaurant name. It could be a long enough, Soviet-sounding female name of high imagery with voiced consonants and with a preposition … У Валентины means At Valentina’s And here are some famous Valentinas of the Soviet era. Thank you!